View report page

56
Order, and, I think, there was another one), the Yestry merely
said this: there is a distinction between a Company which is
already supplying light in the parish, although outside the
statute, and the Companies which neither have works nor
customers in the parish, and therefore we will have nothing to
do with you, you may go to the Board of Trade, and if the Board
of Trade think in their wisdom that you are entitled to Orders or
licences to supply electricity to the parishioners, by all means let
them grant the Order or licence, and upon them shall rest the
responsibility. The Vestry will not assent, or be a party in any
way, to any Company coming in beyond those I have indicated.
But, Sir, what took place? Those views were communicated to
the solicitors to the London Company, and there was not even
an acknowledgement of the objections. Consequently, we were
left in the dark until we received a circular which, in a very light
manner indeed, dealt with objections which, to us, seemed to
be striking at matters of principle. And our principal reason for
objecting to the London Electric Company coming in upon their
own terms, apart from the question of experiment, upon which I
shall offer some slight evidence, is that we say that competition
to be competition must be based upon equal terms. We have got
here the London Electric Supply Corporation in possession of
part of the area. If they will come under the same terms as
their competitors, by all means let them come in (assuming
that their stability is established, and their system approved),
having regard to the particular circumstances of the case, but
if you give them more favourable terms than Companies who are
working inside the statute, you will actually put a premium upon
people obtaining a footing in the parish by some means certainly
never contemplated by law. For instance, how has the London
Company obtained its footing ? By means of overhead wires, as
far as St. James's is concerned, and by means of unauthorized
pipes under streets so far as some of the other parishes are concerned,
among others Chelsea.
Now, Sir, upon the question of overhead wires, I should like to
refer you to the questions which were asked by Sir Henry Tyler
of Mr. Gladstone, and of the Attorney-General, in the year 1881
That was the year before the Electric Lighting Act was passed
I think I have got the dates here. The Attorney-General's
answer is reported in the "Times" of the 9th July, 1881, and I